With the progress of technologies, electronic products are more and more efficient. However, electronic products produce heat during operation, and increase the ambient temperature of the whole system. If no proper heat dissipation mechanism is applied, the system will deteriorate in stability and efficiency and even fail. Generally, heat dissipation apparatuses such as fans, are applied to keep the electronic products working in a certain temperature.
Nowadays, in a computer system, especially in server or storage fields, a system always runs 24 hours a day without interruption. Therefore, the hot plug technology is applied widely in the server and storage fields. The hot plug technology means the system keeps running normally without interruption while a system component is plugged or unplugged directly. The technology overcomes the trouble of powering off the system and interrupting the service to maintain the system. Fans are mechanical units with the highest failure rate in a computer system. It is necessary to develop a hot pluggable fan system to improve the system maintainability.
Chinese patent numbered 02205245.3 discloses an installation apparatus for a hot pluggable fan of a unit server. FIGS. 1-2 show how the hot pluggable installation apparatus is installed on a unit server frame. As shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, a flip-up cover 9 is set on an upper cover 10 of the unit server frame 8, which is according to the location of the fan assembly in the unit server frame. The fan assembly is fixed on the bottom plate of the unit server frame through a fixing apparatus, namely, a positioning rod 3 and a positioning hole 11, and is electrically connected to a control mainboard 7 through sockets 5 and 6. A fan assembly includes a heat-dissipating fan 1, a fan bracket 2, and a circuit board 4. The heat-dissipating fan 1 is fixed in the fan bracket 2. The circuit board 4 is fixed on the fan bracket 2. To assemble or disassemble the fan assembly and the unit server frame, the user can open the flip-up cover 9 to pull out the fan assembly upward or insert the fan assembly downward. After the fan assembly is installed, the flip-up cover 9 can be closed and the fan assembly is replaced.
As shown in FIG. 1, the fan assembly of the foregoing structure is fixed on the bottom plate of the frame through the upper cover of the frame, and the unit server frame is divided into a forepart and a rear part. If the unit server frame uses a backplane to connect the forepart and the rear part and single boards are respectively inserted from the forepart and the rear part of the frame into a slot on the backplane and traverses the unit server frame, the fan assembly of the foregoing structure is not installable. Therefore, the foregoing installation solution is not applicable to the structure in which the backplane connects the forepart and the rear part. Moreover, if a number of unit server frames are overlaid on a rack, the flip-up cover 9 will be obstructed. The unit server frames need to be moved down before a fan is replaced, which makes the maintenance inconvenient.